In addition to daily blog entries, I thought I’d throw out a series of observations that I made while in the Philippines, just in case anyone is interested.  To kick that off, I want to cover where were and give you an index of the observations I’ll discuss over the next few days, just to establish some context.

Faith and I spent time in four distinct areas of the main island.  There are like 7000 islands that make up the Philippines.  I’m sure that some are no bigger than your kitchen table, but that’s still a daunting number.  We were on one of the few big ones, where the capital Manila is located.

Here’s where we were during our trip…

1. We were in Makati for 6 days.  Makati is the prosperous financial district of Manila, the capital city.
2. We were in the outskirts of Manila for a half a day, so we got to see the conditions along the roads and in the districts between Makati and where we were in the burbs (about 90 minutes outside the heart of the city).
3. We were in Laoag City for 1 day.  Laoag is the capital of the northernmost region of the island, called Ilocos Norte.  It’s a much smaller city than Manila.  In terms of number of people, I’d compare Manila to Chicago and Laoag to a Naperville or maybe a St. Louis.  In terms of land area, I’d compare Manila to St. Louis and Laoag to a Collinsville or an Elk Grove Village.
4. We were in the country just outside Dingras for 5 days.  Dingras is a very small rural town.  We were out in the countryside 10 minutes away from the heart of Dingras at John’s orphanage for a significant part of the trip.

I made the following observations while in country.  I’ll do my best to elaborate on these in brief entries over the next couple weeks.

1. The socioeconomic conditions of the country
2. The weather
3. The people
4. The roads, vehicles and general driving conditions
5. The pork … er … I mean the food
6. The technology
7. The language
8. The diverse cultures

I’ll get to it asap.